


Someone Who's There

by Catchclaw



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1960s, Age Difference, Enemies to Lovers, Gangsters-ish, London, M/M, Rivalry, Your Standard Meet-Cute Via B&E
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: It’d been a long time since Dexter Montgomery had been awaken by the sound of a fist hitting flesh--but on the positive side, he thought, peeling his eyelids to the dark, at least this time it wasn’t him getting hit.





	Someone Who's There

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, in my mind, Dex looks like [this](https://i0.wp.com/www.sohaibxtreme.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Watch-Fast-and-Furious-Presents-Hobbs-and-Shaw-2019_2.jpg?resize=640%2C274&ssl=1) and the mystery man like [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/a8f81735137f5466818a41df8b1ee910/tumblr_pukgpbWCUP1xt8jnpo5_r3_540.gif).

It’d been a long time since Dexter Montgomery had been awaken by the sound of a fist hitting flesh--but on the positive side, he thought, peeling his eyelids to the dark, at least this time it wasn’t him getting hit.

“Ah, there he is,” an unfamiliar brogue said from the shadows. “Mornin’ and all that to you, Dex.”

It’d been a long time, too, since anyone had gotten the drop on Dex, wee hours of the morning or no. He smirked and stretched an arm towards the underside of the bed. “Bit early for Santa Claus, innint?”

“Oh, tsk tsk. I’m no saint, red-suited or otherwise.” The voice chuckled. “Which is why you’ll find your trust crowbar’s gone AWOL; I took the liberty of removing it while you were at work.”

Dex froze. “You did what?”

A sigh, and then the snap of a lighter. A sudden orange bloom in the black. “You didn’t think I’d just march in unawares, do you? And your penchant for preparedness is--among people like us--very well known.”

Sweat curled on the back of his neck and for the first time in ages, Dex felt that cold stone that was fear in his gut. Oh, god, he thought, oh hell and fucking god. Had he really gotten so sloppy, so ignorant of the details? How the fuck had someone gotten into his flat without him knowing not once of a day, but apparently twice?

And now here he was, naked in more ways than one, at the mercy of some git who’d knicked his crowbar and now gloating over bon mots and cigarettes and for what, eh? He was old, goddamn it, he was settled, he was on the balding side of middle-aged and he needed a solid eight where once two or three of an evening would set him to rights and frankly, frankly, goddamnit, he was far too old for this shit.

“People like us?” Dex snorted. “I don’t see as you and me have anything in common.”

The man in the corner of the room took a long, deep drag. “Not yet.”

“Not ever.”

“The thing is, Dex, you have something I want. Something that I’m going to take from you, very soon.”

“And what’s that?”

A flick of ash. “Your pub, for starters. Then this block. And the ones on either side.” The man laughed. “Fuck, let’s be honest: your whole territory, the entire fucking shebang--inside of three months, it’ll be mine.”

Dex felt a flare of anger--the fucking nerve!--but kept his voice cool and even; it was his only possible advantage. “Is that so.”

“Aye, it is. And when it’s mine, that means one of two things will have happened.” The man lifted the cig to his mouth and lit up two lips turned in a grin. “You’ll have bent or I’ll have taken great joy in making you break.”

“Keep dreaming. That’s the only place where anything like that will happen. This neighborhood's mine and everybody knows it.”

“Yeah, they do.” White teeth that split ginger whiskers, the kind the younger set favored, more scratch than actual beard. “They know you’ve gotten settled. Complacent in your old age, eh? That’s what I’ve heard. Why do you think I’ve come knocking?”

“Oh, I dunno--to hear yourself talk, maybe? You seem to be enjoying it.”

The man’s voice was a purr. “Of course I am; someone’s got to. Take pride in yourself first. Hasn’t anybody ever taught you that, old man?”

There was a time, Dex thought bitterly, when he’d have had this welp on the floor bleeding 60 seconds after he opened his eyes. But there was a reason he slept with a weapon gathering dust beneath his bed; he wasn’t the bruiser he’d once been because for the last 15 year, he’d had no reason to be. Maybe the man with the fag had a point: he had gotten a little too comfortable, if not downright lazy. _ The Carpenters_’ _ Arms _ was his life now, and he was grateful for it; things rarely got more exciting than a night pulling pints or pulling two drunken lads apart who’d laid eyes on the same bird and puffed their chests out to fight. Sure, he could still swing a fist, but in the dark where his opponent had the advantage--not to mention shoes on and pants--he’d a better chance of hurting himself than of laying one on the cocky bastard who held all the cards. And his fucking crowbar, probably.

“Is there a point to this?” he spat.

“A point,” the brogue said slowly, as if the idea were novel. “Well, truth be told, Dex, I’m thinking of this call as a professional courtesy. A fair warning, and all that, like you all did in the old days.”

“In the old days, we didn’t break into a man’s bedroom in the middle of the fucking night. We had the balls to look him in the face.”

“Oh, but I am. The only trick is that you can’t see me. Even the shadows are on my side.”

God, he wanted to smash this wanker his his smug ginger face. “Enough of this shit, asshole. Get the fuck out of my house.”

There was a sudden clatter, metal crashing into wood somewhere by the bedroom door. Dex squinted, cursed himself. Shit. When had the bastard managed to move? 

“Get some rest, eh, Dex?” The brogue was thicker now, heavy with triumph. “You look like you need it. I’ll see you soon.”

“Don’t do me any favors. You young toughs are all alike, you know that? The lot of you. Big mouths and no brains. You think you’re the first dog to strut in and try to piss all over what’s mine? Well, fuck you, you’re not. And you sure as shit don’t scare me.”

The man laughed and Dex saw the bright end of his cig tumble, heard the hiss as he ground it into the floor. “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep.”

“I’ll find you. Don’t kid yourself and think that I won’t.”

“Tch, old man. Of course you will! I’m counting on it.”

He was gone by the time Dex leapt out of bed and ran to the goddamn front door. He turned on every light in the living room and sat down on the couch, shaking with anger and covered in sweat.

“That little shit,” he said into the three o’clock quiet.

He had a slug of whiskey and tried to pretend his heart wasn’t still pounding. He picked up his crowbar. He went back to bed.

But he didn’t sleep another second until the sun came up and then he got up with a sigh and a serious sense of foreboding and got a move on with his day.

“What the hell,” he said a hundred times between his breakfast and the shower, between his shower and his shoes, between his front door and that of _ The Carpenters’ Arms_. “What in the everloving, damnable hell did I do to deserve this?”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this for myself, because what the hell?


End file.
